Crowdfunding
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CATÓLICA-LISBON SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS Crowdfunding Material Incentives and Performance Candidate: Henrique Nuno Ferreira da Cruz Matos Advisor: Professor Juan Andrei Villarroel Fernández [email protected] Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of MSc in Business Administration, at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa,17 th September 2012 Crowdfunding: Material Incentives and Performance Abstract This study addresses a new way to pool financial resources through an open call on the internet – crowdfunding. As this new industry continues to grow and develop, it is important to evaluate its current status and recent developments to try to find clues about the future. The analysis conducted focused on the types of material incentives that crowdfunding platforms use to entice their users to invest and, more specifically, on the relationship between the types of incentives (equity, revenue shares, prizes, interests and donations - no incentives) and the total money raised by the platforms. Findings indicate that the type of incentive used by a crowdfunding platform has a significant impact on the amount of money it raises. Additionally, the most used type of incentive, prizes, is outperformed by other types of incentive in terms of total money raised. Consequently, and also considering recent developments such as the passing of legislation in the United States regarding crowdfunding, evidence suggests that crowdfunding could become an important alternative source of financing for startups and small companies. It is important for both investors and capital seekers to learn about the viability of crowdfunding as an alternative that allows both parts to generate significant income – or “for-profit crowdfunding”. Keywords: Crowdfunding; Incentives; Web 2.0; Bootstrap Finance Henrique Matos | Católica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics 2 Crowdfunding: Material Incentives and Performance Preface As a Business Administration student, I have a particular interest in the areas of Strategic Management, Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship. To choose a topic for my thesis that could encompass all of these areas was a natural choice for me. Having previously studied these subjects with Professor Andrei Villarroel, I felt compelled to join his dissertation seminar New Business Models for Online Distributed Organization. After exploring some possibilities, I decided to focus my research on crowdfunding. A relatively new phenomenon and one I deeply believe will enable the creation of a new wave of sustainable business projects. I was also inspired by what was already accomplished in related fields (i.e.: crowdsourcing, crowdlabor) and by the opportunity to explore a field that is still emergent as it is promising. My hope is that this study will add to what we know regarding this subject. Acknowledgments I want to thank a few people for the opportunity to write this thesis and for helping me through this challenging process. I will start by thanking Professor Andrei Villarroel for inspiring in me curiosity for these subjects, for all his time, help and mentorship throughout this project. I’m also grateful to my parents for the opportunity to get a Masters degree and to all my friends and colleagues for their help and support. I would like to single out the colleagues from the “New Business Models for Online Distributed Organization” research seminar. Particularly, I would like to thank Diogo Onofre and Sofia Santos, with whom we worked on this seminar topic and who helped me immensely in the process. Henrique Matos | Católica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics 3 Crowdfunding: Material Incentives and Performance Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................ 2 Preface ................................................................................................................. 3 I- Introduction ............................................................................................ 5 II- Literature Review ................................................................................... 6 2.1) The Knowledge Distribution in Society ...................................................................... 6 2.2) Web 2.0 ...................................................................................................................... 6 2.3) Crowdsourcing ........................................................................................................... 7 2.4) Crowdfunding ............................................................................................................ 8 2.5) Convergence Culture and the New Customer .............................................................. 9 2.6) Bootstrap Finance & Crowdfunding ......................................................................... 10 2.7) Research Hypothesis................................................................................................. 12 III- Methodology ......................................................................................... 13 3.1) Variables .................................................................................................................. 15 3.2.1) Dependent Variable – Total Money Raised ........................................................................... 15 3.2.2) Independent Variables – Types of Incentives ........................................................................ 16 3.2.3) Control Variables ................................................................................................................. 19 3.2) Data Analysis ........................................................................................................... 19 IV- Results ................................................................................................... 20 4.1) Overview ....................................................................................................................... 20 4.2) Types of Incentives and Performance ............................................................................. 24 V- Discussion and Conclusions ................................................................. 24 VI- Limitations ............................................................................................ 28 VII- Future Research ................................................................................... 29 VIII- References ............................................................................................. 31 IX- Appendixes ............................................................................................ 34 Henrique Matos | Católica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics 4 Crowdfunding: Material Incentives and Performance I- Introduction This study focuses on a funding alternative that involves pooling financial resources through an open call in the Internet. This alternative is called crowdfunding. It capitalizes on technological progress to deliver a solution that empowers crowds, by providing them the tools to join efforts and make an impact in society. Crowdfunding is still a very recent phenomenon, which is rapidly growing in importance. To illustrate this, one can observe the record breaking and successful fundraising campaign for the 2008 United States Presidential Election by President Barack Obama. President Obama’s campaign relied heavily on a large amount of small individual contributions by average citizens in its fundraising effort1. In other words, crowdfunding was instrumental in this historic campaign. There is still a lot to be discovered in the field of crowdfunding. This study addresses the question of the relative importance and success at fund raising of different crowdfunding mechanisms. It explores the relationship between what the investors give (i.e.: their money) and what they receive in return for their contributions (i.e.: material incentives). A better understanding of these dynamics should provide clues regarding the future of the industry. More specifically, the viability of the “for-profit” crowdfunding alternatives is addressed in this work. The need for a funding alternative for startups and small businesses was studied, as well as a possible way to solve this problem: through crowdfunding platforms that reward their investors with equity/revenue shares or interests, two of the incentive types considered. Regarding structure, this paper is divided in five main sections. The first part is a brief overview of the existing literature related to the topic, which is followed by an explanation of the research methodology followed. Then, two sections address the main findings (“Results”) and their implications (“Discussion and Conclusions”). Finally, the last section is dedicated to the main limitations of the study and some possibilities of future research. Overall, the goal of this study was to shed more light into this online phenomenon - crowdfunding – that is still largely unknown and new and, in the process, test the viability of different crowdfunding mechanisms to finance projects, startups and small businesses. 1 91% of the total receipts of the campaign (FEC 2008) Henrique Matos | Católica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics 5 Crowdfunding: Material Incentives and Performance II- Literature Review 2.1) The Knowledge Distribution in Society A firm, as defined by Ronald Coase in 1937’s The Nature of the Firm (Coase 1937), is a “cluster of resources and agents that